Sunshine State Book Festival

Welcome to the Sunshine State Book Festival! Join us at the Jackson N. Sasser Fine Arts Hall at Santa Fe College for a day filled with literary fun. Meet your favorite authors, discover new books, and participate in exciting book-related activities. Whether you're a bookworm or just looking for a good read, this event is perfect for all ages. Don't miss out on this opportunity to celebrate the magic of books with fellow book lovers. See you there!

Info: Area middle school and high school student winners of the Sunshine State Teen Lit Short Story Contest will be awarded scholarships. Sponsored by Steve Spurrier’s HBC Foundation.

Info: Six children’s book authors will read and entertain the little ones in half-hour intervals. Free activity worksheets to take home

Info: In the Santa Fe Lyceum Theater (Building E).

“Writers in Paradise: Hemingway, Capote, Hurston, and Others Who Found their Inspiration in Florida”
Dr. Clark’s presentation features the stories of over two dozen well-known authors of the past and present who found inspiration and a haven under Florida’s sun, including Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Tennessee Williams, Judy Blume, and more.

Dr. James Clark is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Central Florida where he has taught history since 1987. He earned a doctorate in Florida history from the University of Florida. He is the author of nine books on Florida history and the editor of a three-volume anthology of Florida literature. His articles have appeared in The Miami Herald, The Orlando Sentinel, The Washington Post, and The Florida Historical Quarterly.

Info: In the Santa Fe Lyceum Theater (Building E).
Author and actor Pamela D. Marshall will perform her original one-woman play about famous Florida author, Zora Neale Hurston.
Although Zora Neale Hurston was born in Alabama, she moved with her family to Florida at the age of three and is counted as one of Florida’s great literary figures. She attended Howard University, then Barnard College, where she earned a BA in Anthropology, followed by two years of graduate studies at Columbia University. She became a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, publishing four novels, numerous nonfiction anthropology studies, poetry, and several plays. Her literary papers reside in the University of Florida Smathers Libraries.
While she continued to write and to conduct ethnographic research in the Caribbean, her fiction fell out of the literary limelight until Pulitzer-prize-winning author Alice Walker revived interest in her work posthumously.

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Host or Publisher Writers Alliance of Gainesville